June 2005 – End of Silence

How did I miss this?

Jun 282005

I already knew that Brendan Canty is playing drums with Bob Mould right now, so it shouldn’t surprise me that that Ian MacKaye is off doing something else as well. Where have I been for the last 6-12 months? This interview pretty much covers it. What’s with the two person bands these days anyway? You can check out three of the songs here, courtesy of NPR. I have to agree with most of the assessments I’ve read. It sounds like the stuff from Instrument with a girl singing. That’s not a bad thing. I’ve generally liked Ian’s voice whether he’s doing something a little quieter or barking it out like a drill sargeant. I’m hoping I haven’t missed any local appearances. I guess we won’t see anything new from Fugazi for a while.

Mabel Davis Site Visit

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Jun 282005

The City of Austin was gracious enough to have a public site visit to view the remediation in progress of our neighborhood park, Mabel Davis. The family and I headed over there last night to check things out. There were representatives from the city and the contractors responsible for the cleanup work. I estimate that there were about 10-15 people from the neighborhood and 5-10 city staffers and contractors at the visit. I expected a few more people. The contractor said that they’ve had to turn people away from the pool, which is closed for the summer because of the remediation and they’ve turned away skateboarders looking for the not yet constructed skate park.

I’ve posted photos from the visit as a Flickr set. Those interested in keeping up with the progress and any new information on the park remediation should check out the Yahoo Group. On a related note, there’s also a group focused on the Country Club Creek Trail, which would connect Mabel Davis with Roy G. Guerrero Colorado River Park.
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Malaga

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Jun 252005

Sometimes, it takes a special occasion to get you to try a new place. Tonight was one of those occasions. My wife’s college roommates are in town this weekend. They were three of the four bridesmaids at our wedding and one was my wife’s roommate when we first started dating until she moved back to the Washington D.C. area.

Anyway, we had babysitting for a few hours tonight and headed out to Malaga for an early dinner. It took a google search for the place’s website for me to realize that it’s named after a city and province in Spain, appopriate for a Tapas bar, I suppose. The place was nearly empty when we arrived around 6pm. We quickly ordered some drinks and our first round of tapas which included the Atun Mallorquino, cracked black pepper crusted tuna with horseradish cream, seared and served medium rare, Piquillos Rellenos, Spanish fire roasted piquillos peppers stuffed with goat cheese and drizzled with Spanish olive oil and capers, served with herb bread, Aceitunas Ali

Tragedy at Tacoland

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Jun 242005

Ram - Photo by Mark Greenberg (from nightrocker.com)
I just had this report forwarded to me by a bandmate. We played Tacoland a couple of months ago with Sons of Hercules and had a great time. It was immortalized by the Dead Milkmen almost 20 years ago and countless local bands have played there over the years.

Ram was a great old guy and didn’t deserve to be gunned down in his own place. Nobody deserves that. I hope they catch the bastards who did this and my sincere condolences go out to Ram’s family and friends. I don’t know what’ll happen to the bar in the aftermath, but I hope they can find a way to keep it open. It won’t be the same without him.

(I snagged the photo from here with credit to Mark Greenberg)

Update: Two people are in custody in connection with the shooting. Score one for the good guys.

Update 2: Another person has died as a result of this shooting.

Not the only one

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Jun 232005

Following on my little fit yesterday, I was checking out Metblogs LA this afternoon and found this post from Sean, which led me to ShoxNews. Good stuff.

Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

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Jun 232005

It’s hard to be optimistic when every water-supplied appliance fails. It’s even harder when you keep hearing something new everyday that makes you wonder what alternate reality you’ve inadvertantly stumbled into. Ridiculous laws go into effect. Funding is cut for worthwhile media while huge steaming piles of shitmedia proliferate. The FBI is harassing people and getting away with it.

I was too young during the Reagan years to fully grasp all that was going on. I had glimpses of it through the eyes of people like Berke Breathed and Jello Biafra. I get the feeling now that it’s infinitely worse.

What was that about luck?

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Jun 222005

So, it’s official. Either I or someone in my immediate family has amassed way too much bad karma, broke a mirror or pissed off the wrong <INSERT DEITY HERE>. In addition to having our downstairs flood back in March, our three-year-old car needing a new transmission and multiple illnesses for various family members, our washing machine decided to die Sunday night and send water into the laundry room and garage. I’m guessing it’s a cracked tub, so it’s a goner.

On the bright side, this is the washer that we got for free from Scott and Colleen nearly 8 years ago when we moved into the house. Before Sunday, the only thing it needed was to have the mixing valve replaced by yours truly for $20. (I’m still patting myself on the back for that one). The Wife is delirious with new washing machine facts and stats. We’d better decide on one soon or we’re all going to be either very dirty or naked.

We finally got new carpet into the bedroom on Friday. It’s pretty sweet. All we have to do now is finish painting the front room, rip up the entryway tile, and rip up the linoleum and paint the fireplace and built-in in the den so we can have the laminates put into those two rooms. We also need to have a massive garage sale. All of this is on hold until next week though as we have out-of-town guests this weekend. Anybody want a slightly-broken and very used washer?

Have you been getting the best, the best, the best

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Jun 162005

A couple of months ago, I posted about the new Metroblogging Best Of feature. Well, it’s well beyond 100 posts and growing each week. Check it out the newest gems or the complete archives to experience the highlights from Metroblogging’s 27 member cities. Good stuff.

Speaking of the best, if you check it out and think you can do better, do something about it. Sign up to become a contributor and give your perspective on our fair city.

Act, upload

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Jun 152005

ACTLab TV, born out of a division of UT’s RTF department, had a coming out day of sorts yesterday kicked off by a post on /. and then an article in the Daily Texan.

The site currently focuses on the technology behind its offerings. Alluvium, open source software which allows peer-to-peer streaming of video content, kind of like a cross between BitTorrent and RealPlayer. There isn’t much content yet, but the site hints at a June 20th launch date. There appears to be at least one sample here.

From what I can gather, in addition to the software being open sourced, much of the content will be Creative Commons or CopyLeft licensed, which can mean that you can remix or repurpose the content in your own works. The site hints at a blend of technology and activism. It’ll be interesting to see where they go with this.

Update: I just got news of yet another article about ACTLab TV on Tom’s Hardware.

Traffic Info Discovery

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Jun 132005

I was looking for something else and stumbled across the Austin-Travis County Traffic Report Page. It’s updated every 5 minutes (and the page itself auto-refreshes at that rate) and obviously only includes those incidents that have been reported. I don’t know how useful it is for your morning/evening commute, but it can’t hurt. The page is pretty basic, but it didn’t render all that well in the browser on my phone. Perhaps someone with more time on their hands that I’ve got can come up with a Google Maps hack to incorporate the traffic info.

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